HKUST converted me into a semi-vegetarian,

2024 September update: RIP TT Veggies.

and this is how: Imagine that you have a perfectly conventional schedule: your lunch is between 1200 and 1300 every single day. After your morning classes, you walk to LG1 hoping for a nice bowl of ramen, or perhaps some char siu. Oh wait! As you go down the escalator, you are immediately greeted with the immense queue of hungry HKUST students who are just like you. Together, they form something like a folding python. You shuddered. Oh well, perhaps you think to yourself that you can just go downstairs to LG7. It’s a larger dining hall so there should be a shorter queue, right?

Haha, WRONG. Asia Pacific, as usual, has a long queue. No matter, let’s go to gold rice bowl for some dandan noodles. But you forgot: it’s one of the better tasting canteens in UST. The queue is even more densely folded. The python is dead already, but not UST students. As you walk by the queue, dreading about another day when you queue for 20 minutes, you are greeted with an empty ordering kiosk. Oh, why isn’t anyone lining up here? You walked closer because you need to replace your spectacles since you went to library every night. Wait, is that, TT Veggies? Jeez, only rabbits and Muslims eat that stuff. You looked back at the dead, rotting python with no sign of life. ALLAHU AKBAR! You shouted and dashed towards the kiosk, eager to get your meal within 5 minutes.

Now, I don’t have such a schedule. In fact, my classes often run from 1200 to 1500. But on the days that I have a normal schedule, I turn into a vegetarian. To be precise, I am a Monday and Wednesday vegetarian.